Turning Through the Years
by Mandy of the Amoeba
Summary: PG for angst. I don't quite know how to summarize this...it's a songfic to Turning from Les Mis.


_A/N: Erm...I dont' really HAVE anything to comment on for this one. The idea came to me while watching Les Miserables one day...I'm actually pretty pleased with the way this one turned out. I own nothing, except perhaps Jacob. The song belongs to...um...you know, I'm not all that sure, now that I think about it, but it's from Les Miserables. J.K. Rowling owns all other characters. Oh, wait, I DO have a note for this! The first part takes place before Harry's parents are killed and Voldemort falls, but not TOO long before...I'd say late September of that same year.  
  
  
  
Did you see them  
Going off to fight?  
Children of the barricade  
Who didn't last the night?  
  
  
_Molly Weasley's face went gray as she read the headlines of that morning's edition of The Daily Prophet....another attack, this one at Hogsmeade. Closer and closer to Hogwarts every day...she shuddered, and put the thought out of her mind. She knew Bill was safer at the school than he would be anywhere else; still, she hated to have him away from home, especially now.  
  
Studying the pictures moving on the page before her, Molly shook her head sadly. A bunch of young revolutionaries, some of them just barely out of school, had set up plans of rebellion, a counterattack against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. _"Poor, foolish children..._" she thought, staring at the bodies frozen in death, their wands still poised in midair.   
_  
  
Did you see them  
Lying where they died?  
Someone used to cradle them  
And kiss them when they cried.  
Did you see them lying side by side?  
  
  
_One by one, she gazed at each face, most of them transfixed with horrified expressions....but still others seemed to be determined and emotionless, the willingness to die in their fight still etched there. In each still face, she could somehow see her own children, and knew that, somewhere, mothers were grieving as they read their morning papers and were notified by the Ministry of Magic. Every dead body lying there, piled atop each other as though they were dogs, was someone's child.   
  
_  
Who will wake them?  
No one ever will.  
No one ever told them  
That a summer day can kill.  
  
  
_ Folding the paper, she retreated back inside the burrow, shaking her head. Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes as she remembered the face of her own mother the day they were informed of the death of her younger brother. That had been nearly nine years ago, now, when Voldemort had only begun his rise to power, and not many considered him to be a serious threat. Yet Jacob, Molly's brother, and some of his friends from school knew that this was more than an amateur Dark Wizard; they caught the signs early enough, and became determined to rally the rest of the world to their cause. So full of hope....  
_  
  
They were schoolboys  
Never held a gun...  
Fighting for a new world  
That would rise up like the sun.  
Where's that new world now the fighting's done?  
  
  
_She traveled up the stairs and into her and Arthur's bedroom, pulling a photo album out from under the bed and flipping through the pages until she came to the one she was searching for. On it was a photograph of the Gryffindors in Jacob's class the year he graduated, each and every one of the twenty students waving and grinning, their faces alight with hope in spite of the destruction heard every day in the news.   
  
After staring at the picture for a long moment, she turned to the back of the album. This time she sought out a newspaper clipping, the headline "**Recently Graduated Hogwarts Students Killed by You-Know-Who outside of London**" glaring out at her. From the twenty students in the graduation picture, she counted seventeen of them lying dead in the picture. "_Foolish children..._" she thought once again.  
  
  
_Nothing changes.  
Nothing ever will.  
Every year another brat, another mouth to fill.  
Same old story. What's the use of tears?   
What's the use of praying if there's nobody who hears?  
  
  
_A sharp cry jerked her out of her thoughts, and she sighed heavily, putting the album back under the bed. Making her way to the crib, she lifted her shrieking, month old daughter out of it. "Shush, Ginny, you'll wake your brothers..." she murmured, hoping to prolong the noise that five hungry boys would make. But it was too late; before she could quiet Ginny, thirteen month old Ron began crying from the other room.   
  
As she stepped into the hall, Molly was greeted by Percy tugging at her robes with one hand and pointing to Fred - or was it George? -- as he whined, "Mum, tell him to leave me alone! They keep trying to take my books, and they only soil them!" Although he was only four, Percy was already trying to read everything he could get his hands on....though his attempts were often sidetracked by his mischief making younger brothers.   
  
Another loud cry came from Ron as the harried mother tried to make her way down the hall, Percy still attached to the hem of her robes, Ginny wailing in her arms and Fred and George scampering around underfoot. "Charlie!" she hollered. "Take your brothers someplace where they can't break anything until I get breakfast ready! Arthur's never around to help me when I need him..." she added in a mutter as the eight-year-old Charlie stuck his head out of a doorway.  
  
"C'mon, chums, let's get out of Mum's way..." he said, quickly leading his younger siblings outside to the backyard. With Ron in one arm and Ginny in the other, Molly made her way down to the kitchen. Setting her son in a highchair and her daughter in a little bassinet, she began cooking breakfast. As much as she loved her redheaded brood, they were so _frustrating_ at times...  
_  
  
Turning, turning, turning, turning, turning  
Through the years.   
  
  
_The image of her brother's dead body continued to haunt her as she prepared the meal. The evil seemed to be rising to greater power with each passing day....Voldemort had been gaining control over much of the wizarding world for the better part of a decade. She gazed at her two youngest children for a long moment, almost letting the sausages burn as she did so. "_Please, let them grow up in peace..._" she whispered, shaking her head._  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
_Seventeen years later  
_  
Turning, turning, turning through the years  
Minutes into hours and the hours into years.  
Nothing changes. Nothing ever can.  
Round and round the roundabout and back where you began.  
  
  
_Molly Weasley stared at the heading of the Daily Prophet. **"Young Wizard Hero Harry Potter Killed in Quidditch Match Attack**" Below it was a picture of Harry's dead body, his face forever frozen in determined defiance of the Dark Lord. To one side of him lay the body of Hermione Granger, surprise still registered in her still eyes. On the other side of Harry was a face Molly knew only too well, a face she had raised for eighteen years. Her son's face stared at her from the photograph, his expression neither determined, frightened, or shocked.....only peaceful, accepting of what befell him in his final moments.  
  
She stood there in the middle of the front yard for a long time, not bothering to read the actual article along with the picture. She glanced up at the empty Burrow, then back to the newspaper. With a shaking hand, she let it drop to the ground. Turning back to the house, she whispered hoarsely,  
  
_"_Foolish children."  
_  
  
Round and round and back where you began...  
  
_


End file.
